Rubem Fonseca: Crimes of August

Alzira had thought that history had redeemed her father in 1950 when he became president in a democratic election. Now, in that painful August of 1954, when for the first time she saw her father as a disenchanted old man, a small man, a man without hope, without desire, without the will to fight, victim of the sordid betrayals of his enemies, the ambiguous judgments of his friends — now she became aware of history as a stupid succession of random events, an inept and incomprehensible confusion of falsity, fictitious inferences, illusions populated by ghosts. Now she wondered, has that other man whose memory she had kept in her heart for so many years ceased to exist? Was he another ghost, had he never existed? That idea was so painful and unbearable that she thought she would not resist and would die of pain, there in the Ingá Palace, in Niterói.

AFTER RETURNING FROM HIS TIME OFF, Mattos was at the precinct that Sunday when Cosme, the son of the Portuguese Adelino, asked to speak to him.

“Did you know my father died?”

“I did. I’m very sorry.”

“Since I was a little boy, I’ve always been afraid of the police. When I was still very young, I would ask my father why an awful thing like that existed, that caught and mistreated people.”

“That’s a hard question to answer,” said Mattos.

“Not that you mistreated me when I was held here.”

Silence.

“And your wife’s birth? Did everything go well?”

“Yes, yes. More or less. The boy has a problem with asthma, but the doctor said it’ll go away with time.”

Silence.

“Is there something you need? The matter of your father is finished.”

“I came to tell you something. I don’t know if it can be bad for me, maybe it will, but I don’t care.”

“Say what you have to say.”

“You convinced my father to confess he killed that guy in the workshop. You convinced the prosecutor to charge him. You convinced everybody. You’re an intelligent man.”

“I did what had to be done. To look for the truth. I’m very sorry about the death of your father.”

“The truth. You want to know the truth?”

Mattos put an antacid into his mouth. Chewed.

“Yes, I want to know the truth.”

“It was me who killed the guy.”

“Your father confessed.”

“You forced him to confess. And me, my mother, my wife, all of us in our selfishness ended up believing it was better for my father to say he was the guilty one, because being old he would be acquitted easier than me. We believed that, because it was better for us. I could be near my son and my wife, I could take care of the workshop and the orange grove better than him. My father was an old man and us young ones thought old people don’t need anything, they’ve already lived all they’re supposed to live. So we decided to let my father sacrifice himself for me.”

Silence.

“You killed my father. I killed my father. My wife, my mother killed my father. He was an old Portuguese who didn’t know how to pretend he was something he wasn’t, a murderer, even to protect his son.”

“It’s too late now. Things are never the way they are, that’s life.”

“I want you to arrest me.”

“The case is closed.”

“Arrest me.”

Mattos grabbed Cosme by the arm and dragged him like a rag doll into his office. The inspector’s stomach burned. He threw the fragile youth’s body against the wall.

“Listen, you fool. I cannot and will not arrest you for that crime. I can’t salve your conscience, or your wife’s, or your mother’s. Don’t be stupid. There’s nothing more can be done. Get out of here and don’t come back. I don’t want to see your face ever again, live with that horrible memory for the rest of your life, just as I’ll have to live with it.”

“Sir—”

“Out! Out!”

Mattos, taking Cosme by the arms, led him to the office door, pushing him violently into the corridor and from there to the door opening onto the street.

AT A MEETING that lasted twelve hours, all the air force brigadiers present in the capital decided unanimously that only the resignation of President Vargas could restore calm to the country. The meeting was interrupted twice: for Brigadier Eduardo Gomes to communicate to the other military secretaries the assembly’s decision to issue a proclamation demanding Vargas’s resignation; for Eduardo Gomes to try to obtain the support of Marshal Mascarenhas de Morais, whose loyalty to Vargas was well known.

The meeting was held in an atmosphere of frenzy created by the lower-ranking officers. Editing the communiqué had been extremely difficult. On one side, the younger officers demanded in angry terms that the note directly accuse the president of the death of Major Vaz and demand his resignation. If he didn’t resign, he should be deposed by force of arms. On the other side, the brigadiers, more prudent and possessing a sharper sense of discipline and hierarchy, had no desire for the note to be characterized as subversive. If not for the presence of Brigadier Eduardo Gomes, the younger officers would have breached subordination and imposed their point of view. Brigadier Eduardo Gomes reflected that a struggle among comrades at that moment would only benefit the common enemy; he asked the younger officers to trust their chiefs, the chiefs present there, among whom was Air Force Secretary Epaminondas.

To go to the residence of Marshal Mascarenhas de Morais to communicate the decision of the assembled military men, in permanent session at the Aeronautics Club awaiting the outcome of the efforts of their leader, Eduardo Gomes was accompanied by Brigadier Ivã Carpenter and Generals Juarez Távora, Fiuza de Castro, and Canrobert. Eduardo Gomes had attempted, by taking with him important army generals, to obtain the support of the chief of the general staff of the armed forces. Once again the marshal called upon General Castello Branco as adviser. After hearing the visitors, the marshal stated that, although he deemed resignation a worthy solution, under no circumstance would he countenance its being imposed on the president of the Republic.

The marshal’s attitude disappointed the generals and brigadiers. However, given that the marshal’s reaction had not been one of violent repudiation of the subversive probe of his feelings, the would-be enticers left the marshal’s home believing that in case of a military coup the marshal would not fight against his colleagues in uniform.

As an assiduous follower of regulations, Mascarenhas de Morais related to Secretary Zenóbio, when he succeeded in finding him, what had happened. “The situation is serious, very serious,” Zenóbio had said. At seven that evening, the chief of the general staff went to Catete Palace, where he repeated to the president the meeting that had taken place at his residence.

“I will not resign. I was elected by the people and cannot leave expelled by the armed forces. I will only leave here dead,” said the president. Worried, the marshal noticed in his friend’s voice, more than challenge, sadness and regret.

Eduardo Gomes encountered difficulty in meeting with the secretary of war.

Zenóbio had gone to a luncheon and to watch horse races at the Jockey Club, in the Gávea district. The brigadier only managed to see him in his residence, at five p.m.

“The army will not permit subversion of order,” said Zenóbio curtly.

“Mr. Secretary, I’m not talking about subversion of order. I’ve come to advise you that if the president does not resign, there will be civil war,” answered Eduardo Gomes. “Consult your generals and you’ll find out, if you don’t know already, that our comrades in the army, as well as those in the navy, share the same sentiments of rebellion as their air force comrades.”